How many students taking non-academic routes finish up in higher education? Writing in The Times on Monday, Andrew Haldenby of Reform reported that “only 0.2 per cent of individuals not taking academic qualifications progress to higher education”.

Leaving out the denominator is a cardinal error in statistics. It is unhelpful to be told that 65 people in Sheffield have swine flu, for example, if one doesn’t know the population of Sheffield. Does this bald figure mean one in a hundred people has the infection, one in a thousand, or one in ten thousand?